Every night an adrenalin gushing circus is beamed into
Indian homes where the circus master cracks his whip to thunderous sounds of ‘the
country wants to know’, taming his multi boxed participants into mute
submission. And every night Arnab Goswami assumes the mantle of India’s Chief
Judge, Jury and Executioner, hanging the ones he deems fit and demeaning the
ones he hates but would not yet hang. For the willfully gullible Indian public,
while most of his antics are a cheap entertainment upgrade from the monotony of
daily saas-bahu soaps, for many others his twisting of facts create an illusion
they are herded to believe in. In this TRP game of Indian news broadcast where
the medium paced New Delhi centric media used to cook news on a slow heat, he
seems to have found his ‘B-grade bollywood success mantra’ by manufacturing
issues and packaging ant in a jumbo box.

And India seems to be so fond of this ‘American fox’ replicating
news presentation, that every night guests continue to be shouted at by the
ring master, some same ones who had been made a spectacle of few days ago. The
biggest irony is not that he repeats his theatrics each night, but that he
presents his spectacle as journalism, thundering “How dare you ask me if I have the right to ask you or not? I have every
right to ask you what I want to ask you!” That he wants Indian national
policy to be defined by his outbursts in another tragedy but the bigger one
again is that many Indian politicians actually take a cue from his rants and
carry his ant boxes out of the studios to be used for aiming at political
opponents.

This self obsessed,
utterly argumentative, audiometric specimen and self certified Mr. Know All,
has a particular love for en'masse certifying Kashmiris as anti nationals, fit
only to be executed without a trial in India.His other love of course being to verbally bomb Pakistan, but this
second love somehow seems to be linked for his first love of treating Kashmir
in utter contempt.And in both these
obsessions his studio pal Maroof Reza provides him the perfect tango partner,
especially when Arnab, in a tone he would usually address his wife, says “Maroof, we have a serious problem here!”
like “Honey, what to do now!” To
which Maroof, the other self possessed Mr. Know All, thunders “This is a great conspiracy against the
Indian nation and we (pointing beefy fingers at Arnab and self, ‘We’ meaning
only the two of them can save India now) will
not allow such conspiracies!!!”

His claims of
knowledge notwithstanding, most of his rants on Kashmir are either hollow on
facts or reek of an apathetic prejudice. Sample this, in reply to being told
that Masarat Aalam had been released on court orders and Indian Supreme Court
directive, he continues to rant “but why has the J&K government released
him?!!!!!” He goes further accusing “The pro Pakistan Chief
Minister ....has left his ally the BJP on the edge by releasing a top anti
India campaigner. If he has his way, 10,000 more could be freed.” It took Arun Jailtley to call this bluff in the Indian Parliament
“are you
(the parliamentarians) telling the world that we have kept 10,000 political
prisoners... You have to have some sense of responsibility (while making such
statements)." The number was suddenly revised to
800 by the opposition, a clear downgrade of 9,200 prisoner numbers. And if a proclaimed Indian by conviction, Mufti Syed, according to
Arnab is a ‘Pro Pakistan Chief Minister’ then Omar Abdullah surely must be feeling
like Che Guevara.

Incongruity is not
only that ranters like Arnab, and his permanent panelists who have nothing but hate
for Kashmir, resort to lies, like blaming Aalam squarely for the 128 killings
of 2010, but they also have, on a daily basis, demeaned the tragedy of
Kashmiris. While all kids killed in 2010 were murdered by Indian forces,
following protests against Machil fake encounter by Indian army and Tufail,
Zahid & Wamiq killings, not one mention has ever been made during these
ranting discussions about justice for these kids. Clearly Arnab and most of his
panelists do not grieve for the killed kids of Kashmir but are only concerned
at muzzling voices in the valley who may question the iron fisted policies of
New Delhi on Kashmir. If the Arnab demands the arrest of Masarat Aalam in the
name of national security, just because he echoes what other separatist leaders
have been saying for decades, why then have they never sought action against a
Mumbai based director, a Pandit who frequents Arnab’s show and last year tried
to incite communal hate by falsely and repeatedly claiming that close to 40
yatris had been killed during Amarnath Yatra? While his repeated rumor
mongering and incitement to violence clearly came under 153A of the IPC (sub
clause c), not a whimper was heard against it nor any action taken. Why,
because Kashmiri Muslims are the punching bag for the likes of Arnab and this
rumor monger and everything incited or aimed against Kashmiris is forgiven in
India.

A few days ago
Masrat Alalam would have been an unknown figure in India, but today, thankfully
to the rhetoric drummed by Indian media led by Arnab, Masarat Aalam has assumed
an overnight image projection, propelling him to the front line of pro freedom
leaders in the valley. Back in Kashmir, this Indian diatribe seems to have
marked clear battle lines between New Delhi and Kashmir, where New Delhi is only
seen to treat the J&K government as an extension of Indian Home Ministry.
And in all this, both Mufti Mohammed Syed and Masarat Aalam seemed to have gained
on ground in Kashmir; Mufti seen to have stood up against the dictates of New
Delhi while Masarat drumming support from even those quarters in Kashmir who
would earlier not have identified with him.

Someday the
separatist leadership will have to thank Arnab for unwittingly helping their
cause by furthering the divide between Indian and Kashmir, as one gentleman
told me “my uncle who is retired now was just telling me this that ‘if
I watch him (Arnab) few more times, I might pick up arms"”.

Like street side
junk food in India, his show many not have any great news calorie value, yet
each evening many Indians look forward to relish who all shall be fried and
baked in the Arnab circus that night. Goswami makes full use of the lynch mob
mentality so prevalent in India (and practiced recently in the Assam mob
murder), when he opens his evening street fight club allowing some of his
panelists to smell blood in the air, grabbing that lynching opportunity with
all they can. Every evening Goswami offers an hour of high octane, injected
with elevated doses of cocaine like venom in higher pitches, and every next day
his audience will want, like is the malaise with other drugs, to get into a
higher level of addiction and Arnab’esque ecstasy. While there has to be a
break point of this lynch mob shrill and hate addiction, this tone deaf
executioner is the last thing India needed to return to sanity.